BNP seeks permission to hold rally in Dhaka on Nov 11

The BNP says it has written to authorities for holding a rally at the Suhrawardy Udyan on Nov 11.

“We had planned the rally for Nov 8, but rescheduled it due to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference,” senior leader Ruhul Kabir Rizvi told the media on Monday.

The rally is meant to observe Nov 7, which the BNP observes every year as the ‘National Revolution and Solidarity Day’.

BNP-founder Ziaur Rahman became the army chief after the assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and most of his family members on Aug 15, 1975.

Within months, he was put under house arrest following a coup led by Maj Gen Khaled Mosharraf, who was a sector commander during the 1971 Liberation War.

However, Zia was freed within four days in a counter-coup led by another sector commander Col Abu Taher on Nov 7, 1975, and assumed power by declaring himself the chief martial law administrator, the first in the country’s history.

The ruling Awami League, however, describes it as the ‘Day of Massacre of Freedom Fighters’.

BNP Joint Secretary General Rizvi, however, said that Chairperson Khaleda Zia will pay homage to the party founder on Tuesday at his mausoleum near the parliament, where the Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference or CPC is being held.

Asked whether a ban on rallies in areas near the parliament for the CPC would affect their programme, Rizvi said, “We hope we will be allowed.”